One claim as a reason for the devolution was that it would stop calls for independence from England and therefore produce a far more unified England, but in a 2007 survey done by The Independent newspaper 5’2% of Scots and 59% of English voters want an independent Scotland’ proving that devolution has surely failed to reduced calls for independence has clearly the majority of voters want Scotland to be independent. However calls for independence have been reduced in Wales and more notably Northern Ireland which previously had been near civil war over independence but now the opposing parties sit in an assembly together by law with neither allowed to have a majority. It therefore can be claimed devolution by Labour has clearly helped to achieve a peace in Ireland with the Republic agreeing so.
Another criteria for devolution to be judged on was had it led to a more representative system and therefore a fairer system. The Scottish, Welsh and N.I assemblies have certainly ensured a more fair system nationally with representative democracy as the regions pre 1997 could be ignored due to their minority status in elections. The Scots now have the right to pass laws on regional mattes and are currently campaigning for even more power. There is soon to be a referendum for the Welsh to see if they want financial independence as well and the Northern Irish have also the powers to make regional laws and can also claim to have a fairer system than Westminster as it has its own judicial review meaning a law has to be fair to be passed. The Alternate vote system which is seen to be the fairest system is also implemented in most of the assemblies creating a more representative democracy. It can also be said that the Scottish parliament is becoming more representative with 22.0 % of Scotland's MPs being women and 29 MSPs (34.9 %) are women.
Another question which must be asked is has devolution created a more effective administration and have the powers which have been devolved been used sensibly? One aim of devolution was to reduce the workload of Westminster so it may focus on other matters. This can be said to have been achieved with the workload of Westminster reduced and it could be soon further reduced if Wales gets control of its own finances. The other assemblies also act as a ‘checks and balances’ which not only has therefore created a more efficient but a fairer system. But this can also be argued the other way have the assemblies compromised the supposed superiority of Parliament and its sovereignty. It can be argued that in theory Westminster can via a bill dissolve any of the parliaments making it sovereign, however practically that would impossible due to public unrest and red tape. In Scotland as the parliament is answerable t the people and not Westminster it can also be argued that the people of Scotland are now sovereign there are therefore our parliament has lost its powers. Also Westminster has lost a lot of money in the bureaucracy of creating these parliaments and English tax payers are suffering because of it as they pay for the independence of others. Scottish Mps can be seen to be abusing their powers as they voted for no university fees in Scotland but voted against the same motion in England so the British are essentially paying for the Scottish.
The current coalition government between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives have pledged three main commitments its devolution manifesto a commission to consider the West Lothian question, implementation of the Calman Commission recommendations for Scotland, and a referendum on further Welsh devolution. The referendum which has been mentioned previously may show a possible weakness in the Labours policy with the Scottish parliament being more powerful than the Welsh and N.I assemblies and this is being dealt with. The second point was the creation of a commission to deal with the West Lothian question, a problem introduced in the 1970s and one still ignored by Labour who can be seen to have failed on that part. The Calman Commission among its recommendations makes the statement’ that devolution has been a success, and is here to stay’ showing how the new government are willing to take devolution further than labour.
The aims of Labour’s plans can be seen as the prevention of rise of separatism in Scotland, to address the democratic deficit, to create an effective administration and to continue rolling devolution. These aims all have their faults and Labour failed to introduce any English assemblies other than the GLA including a 74% resounding no to a NE assembly. Overall the Labour government did not implement the devolution far enough, did achieved all of its aims and the current government had to deal with these problems.
